The grandmother of the teenager missing for six years has recalled overhearing the boy’s mum say they’re “getting rid of the phones now” in their last phone call.

Alex Batty, now 17, did not return from a trip to Spain when he was 11 and is said to have lived an “alternative” lifestyle abroad before deciding to return home.

The teenager – now under the legal guardianship of his grandmother Susan Caruana, 68, in Oldham – said his mother was “anti-government, anti-vax” whose catchphrase was “becoming a slave to the system”.

Speaking to the Sun newspaper, Ms Caruana said she had allowed the boy’s mother, Melanie Batty, and his grandfather, David Batty, to take him on holiday in September 2017.

But when Alex called to tell his grandmother they won’t be coming back, she feared she’d seen the last of him.

“They completely and utterly betrayed me and left me heartbroken,” she told the Sun.

“I knew as soon as I heard her say, ‘we’re getting rid of the phones now’. I thought ‘I’ll never see him again’.”

She added she didn’t know “if they were alive or dead” during the entire six years.

“Every time there was some sort of disaster I feared that he could be a victim,” she said.

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) confirmed on Friday that a criminal investigation has been launched into Alex’s alleged abduction.

Alex landed in the UK on Saturday having been found by chiropody student Fabien Accidini near the French city of Toulouse last week after walking across the Pyrenees.

Officers in the UK interviewed Alex after his return from France, GMP said.

Last week, French prosecutors said the teenager’s mother, Melanie Batty, who does not have legal parental guardianship, may be in Finland.

Alex – who said he gave his grandmother a “massive hug” when they were reunited – said he didn’t go to school at all during his time abroad.

He said he must have read the Harry Potter books “at least 20 times” and his main pastime was reading as he could rarely access Wi-Fi.

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“During all my time away, I never attended school for a single day,” he said.

“The only qualifications I have are my SATs test results from primary school when I lived back in Oldham.

“That’s one of the worst things that’s happened to me throughout all this – not having a proper education.”